The Daily Biff - Mitt Romney and Mormonism

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Fri, 18 Apr 2008

Mitt Romney and Mormonism
A few days ago a good friend of mine sent me a chain e-mail letter expressing concerns about how the press was unfairly treating Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, because Mr. Romney happens to be Mormon. Included in the letter was a link to an essay written by Orson Scott Card titled "Is Mitt Romney Serious?". Like most forwarded chain e-mail letters, I gave it a cursory scan and then dismissed the entire matter out of hand as just a bunch of Mormons exhibiting their persecution complex.

But then today, while browsing the opinion pieces at TownHall.com, I stumbled on what I can only describe as a "Mormon hit piece" written by Frank Pastore titled "Mitt Romney, Mormonism and the Presidency of the United States". Here are some lowlights:

Historically, our largely Christian country has chosen to elect Christian candidates (not that there have been many non-Christian candidates). In the last two presidential elections, church attendance was the most reliable indicator of voting preferences. It's no coincidence that the Democrats this time around are determined to appear more religious (i.e., more evangelical friendly) in order to win the White House. Yet, if appearing more religious in this majority-Christian nation is an electoral advantage, then being from a faith other than Christianity presents a new set of challenges. And therein lies the problem for the Romney campaign. [emphasis mine]

Yes, Mormons aren't Christians... blah blah blah. But Mr. Pastore doesn't stop there. While he is patronizing the Mormons on the one hand ("Mormons are among the finest people I've ever met"), he can't help but continue to cast our religion in the most negative light possible:

Yet many Mormons in recent years have taken to calling themselves Christians, and a growing number of Christians are willing to speak of Mormonism as something akin to another Christian denomination. But, Mormonism is not a Christian denomination, nor is it merely "a non-Christian religion." To be theologically precise, though perhaps politically incorrect, Mormonism is a cult of Christianity (www.apologeticsindex.org/c09a01.html) - a group that claims to Christian while denying one or more central doctrines of the Christian faith.

Wow. With friends like these, who needs enemies!

(Update Fri May 4 09:31:50 PDT 2007 // Pastore is still hammering away at Mormons in his recent column using a definition of "cult" as provided by evangelicals themselves, see his column dated April 28th, "Mormonism: Religion, Denomination, or Cult?". His defintion of "cult" essentially boils down to "those who don't agree with me" - which is nothing shy of soft bigotry.)

:: Posted by rus on Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:08 pm
:: Filed under /politics/election2008

[1 comment] [permanent link]

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